A Virginia Tech university graduate and a couple of chums have come up with what one YouTube commenter rates as the "Greatest. Invention. Ever" – an iPhone-controlled beer-dispensing cannon.
Ryan Rusnak, 25, first rigged up a bog-standard refrigerated beer vending machine to dispense refreshment at the touch of his Jesus Phone …

RE: gordon and the one above you

Bud = Timely Repairs

In the 80's, whenever we diverted one of our F-111s to RAF Lossiemouth, step one (literally) in the recovery checklist was to purchase a case of Budweiser (we used the maintenance commander's slush fund) for the RAF senior Warrant Officer up there. If you showed up with case in hand, you got to stay in a nice B&B, lights and power on the flightline, and a truck to use. No case of Bud: sleep in the barracks, no help, no transport. So, don't badmouth Bud too much, it help me get a lot of aircraft fixed...

Oh dear

ABV is not a measure of a beer's quality. I would assume that most people's objection to Bud would be it's lack of flavour.

The reason most lagers are served chilled is to hide the bitter flavours produced from the fast fermentation of cheap grain in industrialised brewing, and the lack of the complex flavours produced by ale yeast strains.

'Real' beer is brewed more slowly, with a different yeast species, and using malted barley, which actually gives flavour, rather than a tiny amount of malt extract and rice starch which is the carbohydrate source for the yeast when manufacturing Bud.

The reason proper beer is served at closer to room temperature is so that you can taste the flavours, rather than to hide them.

NB I don't think all lager is bad. For instance, many European lagers such as properly brewed Amstel, or Mythos can be very nice. Industrially produced piss, however, is just that.

chilled lager

In a good deal of North America, the high temperature on a summer day commonly is above 90 degrees Fahrenheit. If you are east of about the 100th meridian, this is usually accompanied by high humidity. In those conditions, a cold beer can seem like a very good idea.

I can't but feel a trick is beuing missed here

Re: I can't but feel a trick is beuing missed here

> Big Trak, need I say more?

I had one of those first time round. Bit disappointing looking back - it wouldn't turn by the specified angles on tiled floors, and it wouldn't turn by the specified by the specified angles on carpet. It's probably still packed straight back up in my parents' loft (unless my nephews have pestered my brother for one, in which case it's probably gone walkies).

I remember delightedly discovering that the trailer could be made to tip by shorting the connector with a paperclip, so maybe there is at least some mileage in the idea though.

Corrections

Just to correct some of the folks above: there's plenty of decent American beer from the smaller breweries; we just keep it for ourselves. I'd put a micro up against any of the English beer we commonly see on this side of the pond (Bass, Newcastle, and sometimes Boddington). But, I know there's better ales in England that don't make it here. See how that works?

And as for cans, they have their uses for things like camping and boating. The trick is find a micro that cans stuff. A local one here (Sly Fox) cans their Pale Ale, IPA, and Weiss for a contract with the local sports teams. You do NOT want to give Philly fans bottles to throw at people. Caldera IPA from Oregon is also a fantastic canned IPA.

Actually...

There are some good micro-breweries in the US so I've been told (I have a friend who's half American by birth and now lives over there - the "wonders" at British customs kicked his American wife out of the country so he went with her) though I've only experienced Sam Adams which is perfectly drinkable.

The same can certainly be said in the UK - there are some micro-breweries making some truly great beer. I'll take your Sly Fox and Caldera Brewing and raise you Brew Dog http://www.brewdog.com/ ;)

Why Budweiser?

Bud is not American

It is now your problem. Anheuser-Busch was bought out by Belgian beverage giant InBev a couple of years ago. True American owned breweries are making some of the best beer in the world right now. We just don't share it with you lot across the pond, because there isn't enough. There are even some decent brews in cans now. Try a Dale's Pale Ale or Little Yellow Pils.

Dogfish Head is making extraordinary stuff, as are Flying Dog and Clipper City/Heavy Seas. And those are just the breweries that are local to me. Go to a hotbed of craft breweryship like Colorado or Oregon, and you'll find dozens, if not hundreds, of incredibly tasty beers that are only sold on tap within a 50-mile radius of the brewery.

Unfortunately, we were settled by a bunch of tight-a$$es who got kicked out of Britain because of it, and they wrote all the liquor laws here, which favor the large distributors who have marketing agreements with the giants like A-B and Miller-Coors. It's just like Microsoft and Dell put a stranglehold on the availability of [computers with] decent operating systems.

Prohibition

Prohibition killed the American beer culture, before prohibition there were lots of breweries selling all kinds of beer. Remember there was a large german origin migrant intake.

After prohibition the breweries were shut down and all the malters too with the exception of some that produced baby food and extracts for baking and other cooking. The modern American flavourless beer originated in WW2 as the women working the factories wanted a cold beer and did not want strong flavours.

beer snobs....

personaly i dont like lagers or beers.... they ether taste nasty or give me gut ache and have done so since i was 13 lol..

you can keep these so called real ales that use 200 year old yeast cultures, twigs from a particular tree that grows in the grounds of the brewery, a good scoop of horse shite from the clydesdales that used to pull the drays... not forgetting the forskin of the original brewer.... it all tastes like pish with variying amounts of added shite...

on a hot humid day, there is nothing more refreshing than an ice cold pint of dry cider.

lol... lol... lol...

Since you were 13. And now you're 13.5?

Cider gets mangles just as badly as beer - often worse - which is probably why you can tolerate it. Cider is often fermented to higher alcohol levels (it is after all a wine rather than a beer), then diluted, flavoured and carbonated. Basically an RTD wine cooler mix.

It is indeed a lot harder to find a reasonable commercial cider than a good commercial beer.

water is not vodka

For what it's worth...

The vast majority of the few decent beers born on this side of the Atlantic are brewed here in Colorado. Notable exceptions are Dogfish Head and Sam Adams breweries. Other than that, we've got the few craft breweries who know that ale is not lager with brown food coloring stirred in, and that not all stouts must taste like automotive cleaner.